Draft 2 from an Anaphora Exercise
Nero's Prosciutto
Here, where the frogs moan their tombstone solos and the rushes yawn,
I think of Venice and laundry, hanging like Nero's prosciutto.
The hemoglobin hues of summer dresses and last night's underwear
entwine. The pastels of past years and the staggering heat of canals
age the wind of middle school days.
There in the musty canals, I butcher the dog's hair like standing rib roast, little bones
wearing santa hats and leafy crowns in tandem.
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ReplyDeleteRachel this poem is so promising with some very interesting language. With excellent writing like this it is so easy to imagine stronger meaning, so I thought I might offer up some help by trying to create the stronger meaning I found and then give you some lines to add more. Dr. Davidson did this to help me. To me this was far more helpful than any line anlysis or advice.
ReplyDeleteLet me know your thoughts on this as I may consider doing this for others. Does this seem to intrusive to you, if so please disregard it. For me personally I really like when somone helps me reorient my poem.Please use whatever you want from this or use none.
Great Work here.
Here, where the yellow frogs
yawn a tombstone duet
_________________________
Where the rushes groan from
middle school footfals of summer
_______________________________.
The staggering heat and pastel tents
make me think of Venice and no more
laundry, hanging like Nero's prosciutto.
The hemoglobin hues of summer
______________________________
dresses and last night's longjohns
entwine. The musk of past years gone.
and the staggering aging wind of
Cooking the butchers roast and
watching the hair of the dog
with little bones it caught
and the hat like santas crown
moves in tandem with teeth.
Also,
If you would like to post a comment on one of my pieces, please feel free to do so in the same way. It seems to be the most helpful for me, because it is so direct.
The draft seems highly compact at this point of the editing process. I think a good bit of expansion could help pull out the clarity of the draft as the level of elusiveness seems pretty high. I like the specificity of Nero’s prosciutto, yet bringing in the historical figure could create a bit of baggage to the piece if not held with kid gloves. However, the overall strategy of the piece seems to mythologize the more simplified act of doing laundry. The language is pretty rich in such a case, yet perhaps the draft could be expanded and contracted under this vein of thought. Perhaps highlight the speaker more thoroughly? Who is the speaker and why does he or she think of Venice while doing laundry? What is at stake by bringing Venice into his or her thoughts? How does the domestic space connect in some way with thoughts of Venice? Again, I return to Nero who was often considered a tyrannical figure. How does such a reference connect to the thoughts of the speaker doing laundry as well as thoughts on Venice? The draft may also try to establish a more specific sense of place and specificity of the surroundings. A few notes on the draft:
ReplyDelete1) The first line seems to establish a more pastoral setting. Could the setting be expanded further to establish a sense of place? Frogs and rushes are often associated with marshlands so perhaps that could be a guiding agent to the piece.
2) You might want to avoid using hemoglobin as a descriptive word since it is more clinical and it does not seem to be a tangible image.
3) I like the idea of pastels as it implies that the laundry acts as more of a painting. Perhaps a guided image for this draft might be an actual painting associated with Venice?
4) The last line seems dissociative to the draft as a whole. How does cutting the dogs hair connect to doing laundry?